


The Prince and Lady Luck

by winglessdrake



Series: Land of the Meek [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Alternia-Focused, Black Romance, F/M, Flushed Romance, Hemospectrum Flip, Pale Romance, Toy Shipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:37:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winglessdrake/pseuds/winglessdrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five sweeps before becoming a slave of the landwellers, Eridan Ampora embarked on a most unusual journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Headwater of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> While there are no explicit descriptions of rape or child abuse in this story, I felt the implications were strong enough to deserve the tags anyway. I apologize for any discomfort I've caused anyone.
> 
> As an additional note, I've made an ask and update blog for this setting, that can be found on tumblr at http://askthemeek.tumblr.com/. Both in-character questions and requests for more information about the setting are welcome, though I reserve the right to be as mysterious as possible when answering questions that involve spoilers. I will also be posting status updates about forthcoming chapters and side stories, which might come in handy. Thank you for reading.

“Do you ever wish things were different?” he’d asked her once. It’d been just after their first Twelfth Perigee’s Eve on an island, their third since leaving the brooding caverns; unused to the feeling of fullness in their bellies and heads spinning from the storyteller’s words, they’d retreated to the far end of the beach, where his lusus had curled around them both while they dangled their feet in a tide pool.

“Why would I?” she said, and rested her head on his shoulder. Her hair had always been longer and thicker than his, and now reached halfway down her back; it smelled like brine and the bonfire that was now just dying embers in the distance. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”

But less than a sweep later she was saying something different.

“Why do you have to be so mean?” she’d demanded of two kids who’d cornered him in the kelp beds where they were working that season, eyes alight with cruel glee. They hadn’t liked the way he talked, suspicious of his struggles with vs and ws, and liked the purple in his hair even less. They’d mocked him and shoved him around, and things might have really gotten ugly if his lusus hadn’t discovered them, Feferi in tow. She’d called them both bullies, nearly shaking with righteous fury – and then been amazed when all they’d done was laugh.

“But he needs it more than we do,” she’d told him, eyes wide and guileless, just after she’d given away all their extra food to a younger kid. The little squirt had been scrawnier than a reed, with deep shadows under his eyes and no lusus anywhere in sight – he wouldn’t last the season, and how she’d shouted at him for saying so! For the first time, he’d been afraid of her leaving him, suddenly realizing that all the sweeps they’d spent together and everything he’d ever done for her didn’t guarantee that they’d _always_ be together, and so terrified by that thought that he could hardly speak even to apologize.

“Why can’t everyone just get along?” she’d sobbed into his chest, the two of them hiding in the reef while out in the open water two opposing courts fought to the death over a spit of an island and some fish. He’d run his fingers through her thick, tangled hair, and quieted her as best he could, and once the fighting had died down a little the two of them had clung to his lusus’ neck and quickly swam away, never once looking back at the bodies that drifted with the tide and waited for the sharks to come.

The thing of it was.

The thing of it was, sometimes he wanted to shake her for being so _daft_. Why couldn’t she just accept that the world was the way it was, and all that saying it should be different did was leave herself open to getting hurt? They’d come out of the brooding caverns together; he knew she had to have drank from at least a few schoolcasks, so why the confusion, the constant questioning things that had seemed self-evident to him until she went and opened her mouth?

But at the same time, things had once been very different, hadn’t they? All the storytellers said so; there’d once been a time when the people of the sea had ruled land and water, and everyone had lived under a roof built by the drones with a lusus by their side. There’d been none of this scrabbling for a living and scratching for a position; they’d all been like counts, second only to the Empress herself. There was no Empress now, of course, but if there should come to be one again...

He’d always known Feferi was special. He’d known back in the caves, when she’d been looking around so wide-eyed and innocent, and when they’d come out to the open water and seen the hulls of the Cavalreaper ships and heard the bombs falling, hadn’t she clung to him and ignored everyone else in their clutch? And hadn’t he took her hand and held on tight, while his lusus led them both to safety? Even then he’d known that she was something worth protecting, and she’d only grown stronger and more beautiful with every passing sweep. But what could someone like him do for her? _She_ was the special one, he was just...He was nobody.

It was another storyteller who showed him the way.

They’d both turned five earlier that sweep, and were getting a little old to be sitting with the kids. They should have been trying to get into one of the courts, not as seasonal hands-for-hire, but permanently; there were plenty out there who would have been glad to have them, for his lusus if nothing else. But Feferi wouldn’t hear of it. “What do we need any of them for?” she’d say, looking back over her shoulder at him as he carefully picked the tangles out of her hair. “We’re doing just fine on our own.” Pointing out that they could be doing a lot better was useless, of course. She’d just sniff disdainfully and begin extolling the vices of every court he cared to mention, everything from the number of wars they’d declared on their neighbors since before either he or her had been _alive_ to the Countess’ habit of cleaning her ears in public.

“So why don’t you just start your own court, then?” he’d finally asked her, exasperated – and she’d paused, thoughtfully, and then suddenly grinned.

“Maybe I will,” she said cheerfully, and “Don’t be ridiculous,” was what _he_ said – but on the inside he knew that if there was anyone who could have ever pulled it off, it was her.

So there he was, curled up with her and his lusus in the middle of the Court of Pearls and Silt, so agitated that he barely even noticed when the storyteller finally came out of her tent. She was old, old, old, so old that he wouldn’t have been surprised at all to hear her say she’d once met the Empress face to face, and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes as she began the traditional preamble. Feferi noticed and gave his gut a sneaky nudge with her elbow; after that he at least tried to look like he was paying attention.

“– in the days of the Mother Grub’s mother,” the storyteller was saying, “the mountains ruled the plains, and the shore ruled the mountains, and the waves ruled the shore. The Condesce ruled over all, and feared none but her ancient custodian, who some called the Emissary of the Dark Gods. Where it had come from no one knew; some said it had been hatched from the planet itself, waiting in the deep, lightless waters until its destined ward emerged from the caverns. Its hunger was everlasting, and the Condesce built her empire upon the threat of its ravenous wrath. But she quickly found the role of empress to be far preferable to the role of huntress, and small wonder; so she founded an elite group of warriors, all of them seadwellers of the noblest blood, and charged them with keeping the Emissary fed. They were the Orphaners, and the greatest of their numbers was called Dualscar. He was not the strongest or the swiftest; neither was he the wisest or the most skillful. But nevertheless he was the greatest, for he alone among all the trolls who had ever been or will ever be dared to pity his sovereign.”

Surprised, Eridan listened attentively; by the time the storyteller had finished speaking, he knew what he had to do.


	2. The Prince Begins His Journey...

Of course it wasn’t just a matter of picking up and _going_. He had a moirail to think of, and taking Feferi with him was completely out of the question. He didn’t even tell her about his plan, afraid that if he had to actually explain it, justify it, the strange sense of purpose that had gripped him ever since he heard the story of Dualscar might disappear. He _knew_ what to do, knew it was well as he knew his own name or sign, but if exposed to the light of scrutiny mightn’t that assurance fade away, like sea foam? It was the first secret Eridan had ever kept from her.

In all honesty, his motives may not have been entirely altruistic. He told himself that if he was doing this for her, and so he was. If Feferi was serious about making herself a countess – and the way she talked sometimes, Eridan wasn’t sure even that would satisfy her – then she’d need powerful allies. The storyteller had described an ancient, mystical weapon, the stuff of legends in Dualscar’s own lifetime, which could call down lightning on the wielder’s enemies; it didn’t get any more powerful than that, now did it? If he had a weapon like that, he could protect Feferi from anyone and everyone who ever wanted to hurt her. He’d help her carve out a court of her own, help her do whatever she wanted – and then he’d never have to worry about her leaving him.

Some thoughts were too dangerous to contemplate, even silently. Eridan didn’t bother to examine just why he cared so much about keeping his moirail by his side, any more than he was troubled by the question of where his certainty came from that Dualscar’s weapon was even there to be found. The knowledge might as well have been written on his genes, he was so sure of it: the weapon was still out there somewhere, and he would find it, if only he knew where to look. And as it happened, he _did_ know: Dualscar’s kismesis had been a landweller named Mindfang, a mad pirate who had in the fullness of time betrayed him to the clown cultists, the Subjugglators, before receiving her own defeat in turn at the claws and flame of a vicious white dragon. The entire pirate fleet had been burned in the middle of the Nodosuma Sea – but everyone knew that the currents in that region flowed south, towards the Angustiro Archipelago. The wreckage would have been carried into the shallow water surrounding the islands and lodged there, just waiting for anyone to come and look for it. An older troll might have given up on the whole plan for that reason alone, assuming that the weapon would have either been destroyed by the seawater or picked up by someone else – assuming that Mindfang had been carrying it in the first place – but for his all pretensions to sensibility, Eridan was still very young.

The only thing keeping him back was the question of what to do with Feferi while he was gone. He couldn’t take her with him, but neither could he just leave her alone. He had to wait until he was sure she’d be okay without him to look after her – and she was getting so headstrong these nights, so ready to mouth off to anyone who gave her even a little lip, that with one thing and another it was nearly six seasons before he was finally ready to go. Maybe he’d just finally run out of patience; spending the third dim season in the Court of Cats and Wine hadn’t been _his_ idea, no matter how well the countess paid kids to work in her kelp fields. But Feferi had made friends with one of her Severity’s advisers, a kid their age – and how bizarre was that? – and Erozia had made a point of offering them a job.

Eridan has been on sharp lookout for any funny business, but to his surprise Feferi not only seemed happier as the perigees passed, but she calmed down as well. Whatever was going on between Erozia and the countess apparently didn’t extend to her friends, and when she wasn’t busy with court things she and Feferi nearly always had their heads together about something or other, leaving Eridan more time to get ready for his big quest. Still, he couldn’t help but hesitate on the evening he finally decided to go.

It was very, very early. The sun hadn’t even set properly, and thin trails of light still shone out of the western horizon, coloring the sea red and stinging his eyes with the glare. Eridan hadn’t slept. Wanting to avoid the complications of goodbyes and demands for explanations, he’d stayed awake for hours, until both his lusus and moirail were soundly asleep in the little bower they’d built close to the shore and the light had fallen far enough to see through. He was debating the wisdom of that decision now; his journey hadn’t even started yet, and he was already yawning with exhaustion.

Would it be better to wait another night and slip away while Feferi was out in the fields? No, Eridan decided after a moment’s thought. It’d be too risky; if he went back now he’d have to unpack all his supplies and risk waking Feferi, otherwise she’d ask about his stuffed haversack and the missing food. He wasn’t even taking that much, just some non-perishables to last him through a few perigees in case he couldn’t catch anything on his own, but it was inconceivable that Feferi not notice the difference. There was also his lusus to think of; after so many sweeps of looking after two kids instead of the usual one, the old horse practically treated Feferi like its own flesh and blood. It could be counted on to keep Feferi safe while he was gone, but only if it didn’t see him leave. So he had to leave now: there was just no way around it.

Somehow thinking that made it easier to start walking out into the surf. The shallow water was still warm from the sun, but when he got out to his chest and dived beneath the surface it felt comfortably cold. Shaking off his fatigue as best as he could, Eridan swam quickly, putting the Court of Cats and Wine far behind him.


	3. ...And Meets An Unexpected Ally

He pushed himself hard at first, wanting to avoid pursuit and having the vague idea that the quicker he got out there and found the weapon, the quicker he could get back. The first time he ran out of food was a wake-up call; after that he slowed his pace, with frequent pauses to hunt for food. It was during one of these breaks in his journey that he saw the boat.  
He’d been finding it hard going up until then. Three was a better number for living off the land than one, and while he didn’t think himself in any danger of _starving_ Eridan had to admit to himself that he hadn’t planned for this jaunt as thoroughly as he’d thought he had. The boat offered the possibility of easy food, so long as he could avoid being seen, and almost more valuable than that it promised a short distraction from the pain of missing his lusus and Feferi. He’d never been alone this long in his life.

It was a smallish, wooden boat, not entirely unlike the fishing vessels used by the larger courts. There was no ladder – probably to deter boarders such as himself, Eridan thought with amusement – but the hull rested so low in the water that he was able to claw his way aboard anyway without too much difficulty, holding his short spear clear of the aged wood with one hand as he scrambled over the railing. The sun was a pink line of fire on the eastern horizon, and he curled up in the lee of the companionway, thoughtfully sucking a splinter out of one of his fingers while he took a look around.

The deck was completely deserted, of course; but by listening carefully and ignoring the sound of waves breaking against the hull he thought he could just barely hear the sound of quiet conversation below decks. The fishermen, or whoever they were, had plainly retreated down below for the day, and without even bothering to post a guard. Eridan sneered at their carelessness and began to carefully explore the deck.

He’d been hoping to find drying racks, such as he’d seen in the courts, or better yet a fresh catch that hadn’t yet been cleaned, but to his surprise the heap of nets that he found pushed up against the mast looked like they hadn’t been used in perigees. What kind of fishermen were these? Disappointed, he wandered back down to the companionway, wondering if he dared take his search below decks and risk discovery, or if it would be better to just cut his losses now and leave. He’d just decided on the latter – not a difficult decision; who in their right might would _want_ to go traipsing into a landweller hold? – when suddenly the sounds coming from below changed.

Was someone _crying_ down there? His attention caught, Eridan looked down into the stairwell, listening carefully. He _could_ hear crying, sure enough; and the sound of someone pleading, followed by the heavy smack of a hand against flesh. Disgusted, Eridan was about to leave when a new voice rose above the first – a female voice, that couldn’t have been a day older than himself or Feferi.

“Let me go, let me go!” the voice said with an audible sneer, and a cruel laugh. “Who do you think you are, making demands of me? You should be grateful to me!” The pleading continued, only just barely audible; again came the sound of a fist hitting flesh.

“Shut up!” the girl’s voice shrieked. “Just shut up! I’m sick of listening to you! Shut up and go to sleep!”

A weighted silence fell over the deck. Mystified – and perhaps a little horrified as well – Eridan was ill-prepared for what happened next: the door at the bottom of the companionway opened, and a small figure, its head hung low, began to climb the stairs. Startled, Eridan quickly scrambled out of sight, crouching in the narrow space between companionway and railing that led to the tiller at the rear of the boat – and just in time, for the landweller all but ran up the stairs, her boots making heavy clomping noises on the wood. She threw herself across the deck, fetching up against the railing just a few feet up from Eridan. Dismayed, he could do nothing but hold as still as possible and hope not to be noticed.

Fortunately the girl – for girl she was, he’d been right about her age – seemed in no mood to notice anything. She was scrubbing viciously at her face and muttering to herself; she was so close to Eridan’s hiding place that he could clearly hear every word.

“Stupid,” the girl was saying. “Stupid, stupid, stupid...What’s your problem? You think _she_ would have cared?” She clutched at the left side of her chest – no, at something she was keeping inside her coat. She sighed deeply, and after a moment shrugged roughly, throwing her long, thick hair back over her shoulders. Blue stood high in her cheeks – and she had a mutant eye, Eridan realized. He could just barely see two extra pupils from where he crouched in the shadows.

The girl must have seen him as well, for she suddenly turned, all eight eyes focused on _him_. For a moment both he and her were still, surprise holding them motionless – and then the girl’s face crumpled with rage, and she charged him with a wordless shout. Eridan sprang to his feet, pushing the girl back as hard as he could – and then he was gone, scrambling over the railing and diving deep into the sea, the girl’s wordless cry lingering in his ears and a strange feeling in his thinkpan, like a lead weight, but more easily ignored.


End file.
